Saturday, July 12, 2008

Letter to the Editor -- Electric Cars about to take over.

The best solution to high gas prices is electric cars. We need to find ways to make more of them. There are several reasons for the continuing interest in these vehicles:
1. Electric cars create less pollution than gasoline-powered cars, so they are environmentally friendly.
2. An electric car is a car powered by an electric motor rather than a gasoline engine. From the outside, you would probably have no idea that a car is electric.
3. When you drive an electric car, often the only thing that clues you in to its true nature is the fact that it is nearly silent.
There is great interest in electric cars. According to VentureBeats, thirty companies are ready to take over the road with different models of electric cars. VentureBeat’s mission is to provide news and information about private companies and the venture capital that fuels them. These companies all recognize that there is a market big enough for them all to be pursuing making electric cars.
Walmart supermarket chain has a couple of all-electric 7.5 ton delivery trucks on trial. Modec produces and sell all-electric 5.5 ton delivery vehicles. There are 500 electric Minis coming to California.
Companies like Smith Electric Vehicles already have hundreds of all-electric trucks and vans. They are now commencing production of a 12 ton US-specification truck at their factory in Fresno, California, where they are making around 800-900 this year and are building a new 300,000 sq.ft US factory to produce 10,000 vehicles a year by 2010. That's in addition to 5000 a year for Europe by the same date.

Gloria Abercrombie
Kansas City, MO

No comments: